Salman Rushdie today mourned the death of V S Naipaul, saying he lost a beloved older brother while fellow authors said he was one of the greatest writers who was very engaging when he turned on the charm.
Naipaul's family today announced he died in London at the age of 85.
British Indian novelist Rushdie in a tweet said, "We disagreed all our lives, about politics, about literature, and I feel as sad as if I just lost a beloved older brother. RIP Vidia."
Sanjoy K Roy, one of the organisers of Jaipur Literature Festival, tweeted, "He could be cranky and disagreeable but when he turned on the charm he was engaging and more often then not educative and informative! He will be missed."
The official feed of the Nobel Prize also put out a tweet saying, "Remembering V S Naipaul, awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature for 'having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories' who has passed away aged 85."
Vaishali Mathur, who manages the Hindi publishing of Penguin Random House India, told PTI, "Naipaul's books occupy a pride of place on our Hindi list. It gives us immense satisfaction to know that we have all his books in Hindi and that the Hindi reader can benefit from the Nobel laureate's writing as much as any global reader. And that his legacy will live on."
Picador, which published most of his books, tagged a tribute in the Guardian in its tweet and said, "A beautiful and moving tribute to the incredible life and towering literary achievement of our author Sir VS Naipaul who sadly passed away this weekend."